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Polygamy

Read the OP and answer

  • Yes

    Votes: 25 58.1%
  • No

    Votes: 18 41.9%

  • Total voters
    43
and I didn't even get into how to best decide which spouses cuddle with which spouses on a nightly basis. One big Rock, Paper, Scissors contest!

:lamo :lamo


I do recall an interview with a branch-Mormon polygamist one time. He said something like "You'd think with three wives there would always be a bed you were welcome in, but it doesn't work that way. If ONE of them gets mad at you, they're ALL mad at you!" :lamo
 
dear god, imagine what it would be like if you shared a house with 2 or 3 women, that all had PMS :shock:
 
dear god, imagine what it would be like if you shared a house with 2 or 3 women, that all had PMS :shock:


And considering that women who live together tend to synchronize periods after a while...

I know a guy that has a wife and four teenage daughters, that has to be bad enough. :lamo
 
I voted no, but only because polygamy introduces some serious legal issues that would need to be addressed first. Once those issues are worked out, I have no problem how many people want to be collectively married. Specifically, issues such as property rights, child support and visitation, etc. would have to be worked out, there just isn't existing case law for how to handle it between more than two partners and it would turn the court system into a nightmare.

Fix that and sure, marry anyone you want to, so long as all involved are consenting adults.
 
You don't see a family, as an economic entity and as a child rearing entity, as benefiting society when it can broaden the adult representation beyond 2 people? In that scenario, I see that some adults would chose to raise children and care for the household, some adults would pursue education and sabbaticals, some adults would choose to work and develop their career or start businesses, and some adults would go on adventure and play (sailing around the world). More adults can ensure economic stability while others pursue their other plans.

Set it up as a incorporated civil union. You may be required to buy shares to enter the family. You hold a percentage of assets and liabilities. If you decide to divorce yourself, you get out the percentage you own. Divorce maintains family stability.

There are a lot of advantages.

I am not confident that polygamy would be a benefit to children. If you have some data to support the idea, I would have to rethink things some.
 
I am not confident that polygamy would be a benefit to children. If you have some data to support the idea, I would have to rethink things some.

Alas, I have no data. The only actually cases out there seem to be somewhat ignorant religionists who have a patriarch and many wives. This does not reflect the spirit in which I was talking about the benefits of a clan marriage.
 
I am not confident that polygamy would be a benefit to children. If you have some data to support the idea, I would have to rethink things some.

It is custom for women in Tibet to marry two men, usually brothers, so they practice polyandry. One reason why scientists say they do so is because a woman with children who has two husbands has two husbands so they can gather more resources for the wife and children. This is required in a harsh environment that they live in.

Personally, I think the U.S. lives in a de facto state of polyamory. After all, people aren't required to be married to have intimate relationships or bear children with another person. A woman can have several kids from different men, and men can have kids from different women. Just because it isn't official doesn't mean anything.
 
Absolutely not on this.

There's no realistic and feasable way to reconcile our various laws in regards to marriage to allow for something like this without an unmeasurable amount of pitfalls, surprise loopholes, and unexpected issues to swell up. Our laws are set up in such a way that marriage functions as a benefit and a determination for two person marriages and while these laws would easily translate from man/woman to man/man and woman/woman they would be turned on their head and obliterated with man/woman/woman or man/man/woman or any other mixture greater than 2 people.

As such, the only way I would believe Polygamy should be "legalized" would be if government completely got out of the business of recognizing couplings OR the actual LEGAL recognition of a coupling would be limited to two person while the act of privately being married to and living with multiple spouses would be legally allowed.

As it stands today, absolutely not.
 
Personally, I think the U.S. lives in a de facto state of polyamory. After all, people aren't required to be married to have intimate relationships or bear children with another person. A woman can have several kids from different men, and men can have kids from different women. Just because it isn't official doesn't mean anything.

I'd argue that serial monogamy and infidelity are much more prevalent than any form of polyamory, and certainly much more so than even the loosest definitions of polygamy. These men and women with multiple children by multiple partners don't enjoy stable relationships with the other parents of their children, and I'd say most are not collaborating in any meaningful sense in the rearing of those children; they are moving on from relationship to relationship and from broken home to broken home. Whatever other complaints we might have against polygamy, it is fundamentally a more stable and more responsible lifestyle than is being practiced by millions upon millions of Americans.
 
If your state were to propose a law or ballot initiative allowing for persons to be married to more than one partner, would you support it? Why or why not?

I would support this as long as it was voluntary and involved only adults. My concerns with polygamy, having lived in the state of Utah for 10 years, was the rampant welfare fraud and child abuse (including child sexual abuse) within some of the polygamist sects. I have no moral objections to polygamy.
 
Whatever other complaints we might have against polygamy, it is fundamentally a more stable and more responsible lifestyle than is being practiced by millions upon millions of Americans.

As currently practiced in the shadowy underground in small towns in southern Utah, Northern Arizona, and west Texas, as well as several other areas, Fundamentalist LDS polygamy is rife with abuse of women, children, the welfare system, and the hundreds of sons who are cast out every year because there aren't sufficient women within these communities to sustain polygamy longterm. That's not a stable or responsible lifestyle.

Read about the Lost Boys of St. George and get back to me.
 
Yes, I agree with you that religious fundamentalists and welfare frauds are irresponsible and unstable, and that the Mormon offshoot cults are degenerate in general. (I have nothing but respect for the mainstream Mormon church.) However, I would argue that it is their contempt for American mores and government that makes them degenerate, and not merely their practice of polygamy. They're more like criminal gangs than normal citizens; it's hardly fair to compare them to upright citizens and say that the results would be similar.
 
Yes, I agree with you that religious fundamentalists and welfare frauds are irresponsible and unstable, and that the Mormon offshoot cults are degenerate in general. (I have nothing but respect for the mainstream Mormon church.) However, I would argue that it is their contempt for American mores and government that makes them degenerate, and not merely their practice of polygamy. They're more like criminal gangs than normal citizens; it's hardly fair to compare them to upright citizens and say that the results would be similar.

I agree with you on this one. I often longed for a 2nd wife when I was married, someone who was good with kids and would be happy staying home and raising mine while I earned a paycheck. I still think that clans are the way to go, since most of us don't have nearby extended family members anymore.

It doesn't get much worse or more corrupt than the whackadoo "prophets" of the FLDS.
 
I would probably support it. Mostly because it is none of my business who people marry and so long as the polygamy is open on both sides, not set in some discrimination (which is one of the major problems with polygamy); then why should I stop it?
 
Giving it a first thought, it's every man's fantasy to have many women around him all the time.

Giving it a second thought however, it's every man's nightmare to have many wives around him all the time.

So I voted no.
That, and it'd also cause a great portion of the world's population to live in one house. After all, why not marry every woman/man you find attractive?
 
My state has already made polygamy illegal. I personally would not support it either.
 
If your state were to propose a law or ballot initiative allowing for persons to be married to more than one partner, would you support it? Why or why not?
Nope. Too complicated, plus it'd get easily abused by people trying to earn tax breaks.
 
Yes but there certainly has to be some stipulations on it. The most common practitioners of polygamy are the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. Polygamy of the type they promote is absolutely disgusting and wrong. Girls only 13 years of age married to men almost 4 times their age, that is very, very wrong but they get away with it by isolating themselves from society.

Now if a man wants to marry more then one consenting ADULT female or vice versa ; ) then I am for it.
 
I would support this as long as it was voluntary and involved only adults. My concerns with polygamy, having lived in the state of Utah for 10 years, was the rampant welfare fraud and child abuse (including child sexual abuse) within some of the polygamist sects. I have no moral objections to polygamy.

I'm assuming in any situation, the laws would be changed to accomodate this new relation status, and that all previous consent laws would exist or be strengthened. I'm more curious in how people would react philosophically than the nitty gritty details.
 
The first thing you'd have to say is that it all has to be open and aboveboard; if Spouse1 is already married to Spouse2 and Spouse3, they'd have to ALL legally consent and sign papers to that effect before Spouse4 could be added to the marriage. Public notification of some sort, like an add in the local paper, also.

That would be assuming you allowed "add-ons" after the initial marriage.


To answer the question, I would probably stand neutral and neither support nor oppose, depending on the details. If the law enabling polygamy looked badly written, ill-considered or otherwise not covering all the bases that needed to be covered, I might oppose that particular law.

Polygamy has a long established history and was a successful family/reproductive/child-rearing institution for millenia in many cultures. Therefore I have no particular societal objections to it, nor do I have any substantive moral criticism to make, though I consider lifetime monogamy to be more ideal.

On consideration, it is possible that polygamy might actually make marriages more stable and provide some advantages in childrearing. A man with three wives already has his "variety" built into his marriage; perhaps that would cut down on adultery. Joe and Jane might have regular jobs while Mary and Sue tend to the home and the children.

IIRC the OP said "polygamy". Whether he meant polygamy alone, or also polyandry or polyamory I don't know, though I would speculate he probably did mean "group marriages of whatever makeup". Historically polyandry has been practiced but rather rarely; offhand I don't know that polyamory or group marriages have any historical precedent. The idea of polyamorous or group marriage doesn't blow my mind, though, having read a lot of Heinlein growing up. :mrgreen:

However the social and interpersonal dynamics of such arraingements ought to be studied and given careful consideration before we go there. We don't want to frack up the institution of marriage more than it already is, we'd want to have some idea of how well polyandry or polyamory would work before we instituted such plans.

Polyandry would be reproduction-neutral: that is, one wife and multiple husbands would produce no more children than one husband-one wife, because there is only one womb involved.

If all of that were legally instituted, I think polygamy would be somewhat uncommon but the most popular; polyamory/group marriages the next most popular; polyandry the most rare. I doubt there are many men who would see benefits in sharing a wife with one or more other men, and as noted the historical precedent is relatively rare.

At any rate, it is an intresting question as there is much to discuss on the subject. :mrgreen:

Does anyone here have friends who live in a polyamorous/group relationship, regardless of the lack of legal recognition? I'd be curious as to any insights you might have. I knew a fellow who lived in such a household, a neo-pagan group to be specific, (and yes they had kids), but we didn't know each other well enough to discuss the juicy details, lol.

I meant polygyny, polyandry, various group marriages, I'm not restricting it here. I know some people in open dating relationships, and it works as long as everyone is honest and equal and supports the arrangements, but I don't personally know anyone who has taken it to marriage levels.
 
If it could be implemented in a way that would guarantee it would only take place among truly consenting adults rather than sexist religious fringe groups, then I suppose I'd be for it. I don't think it would work out too well though in real life though, so I voted no.
 
No I would not. I agree that marriage is about family values, even though the anti-GM lobby has distorted the meaning. Family values means what is best for children, and based on what I've read that does not include polygamy. You want to talk about confusing the children, then have a situation where there are multiple people trying to fill parental roles inconsistently and unevenly. Children need fixed, stable parental roles and I don't think group dynamics satisfy that, given that polygamy tends to involve one male and several females.

If it's not about families then I don't know why we should allow marriage licensing for polygamy. You guys can just go get married under your own accord and have your own ceremony without the state being involved.
 
-- I know some people in open dating relationships, and it works as long as everyone is honest and equal and supports the arrangements, but I don't personally know anyone who has taken it to marriage levels.

Yes but there certainly has to be some stipulations on it. The most common practitioners of polygamy are the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. Polygamy of the type they promote is absolutely disgusting and wrong. Girls only 13 years of age married to men almost 4 times their age, that is very, very wrong but they get away with it by isolating themselves from society --

I've come across various versions of multiple marriages in my travels and allowing men to marry very young teens / girls is quite common across groups that practice marital polygamy / polyandry.

Odd that "open dating" however tends to be practiced by consenting adults who (hopefully) know what they are getting into and have gone in with eyes wide open about the pitfalls / benefits of such relationships. What I mean is that you rarely found "open dating" groups where age ranges crossed the potential "paedophile" threshold.

I often longed for a 2nd wife when I was married, someone who was good with kids and would be happy staying home and raising mine while I earned a paycheck. --

This sometimes works in the relationships I came across - elder kids from one coupling helping with childcare (quite common to see young kids on childcare duty while parents tended the fields - or the young ones having a baby tied to their back and sent out for a walk so parents could get some rest) but I also saw bitter resentful elder wives who were relegated to cooking and cleaning for the glamorous virile young wife that husband had brought into the family.

If I had to vote - I'd probably vote "no" - from personal experience I found that such multiple sexual arrangements worked best when you kept the "M" word out of things so people could come and go as they pleased or change their minds about sharing partners. Once you "marry" - there are legal obligations that introduce whole new pressures.
 
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If consenting adults want to enter into multiple civil unions then what business is it of mine? NONE!
 
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